augusten

Apologies for many days without posting, dear reader! At first when I tried to log on and post this morning, Blogger was pooping on my parade. Serves me right.

Lastnight I got home and had many delightful things in the mail: two of the wedding postcards; a postcard from Hirado, Japan from my mother-in-law, who reports that she has seen a lot of blue and white pottery which I would like, and I have no doubt that I would; a cornucopia of fabulous birthday gifts from my friend Karin, including a WonderWoman journal, an amazing disco ball pen that writes superbly, and a bar of the best chocolate in the whole world, Nestle Truffon bar, vended exclusively in Europe, from whence she is lately returned; a letter from Mom; and a spooky confetti-laden Halloween greeting with scorched edges from Amy, which I've decided will adorn the refrigerator EXCLUSIVELY for the upcoming party. It's a black fridge, so the scorched-edge Cornish prayer warding off the creepy crawlies will have a nice effect solo.

Lastnight I went, for the second time, to a reading by an author at Seattle's Central Library. There are several reasons we like these events: the Central Library is purty; going to something authorly makes us feel cultured, in contrast to our usual homebody, cultural event-ignoring, might as well be living in a remote valley of NCW mode; AND DON'T FORGET: it's free. And so far, very entertaining! The author on this occasion was Augusten Burroughs, author of a novel called Sellevision, which we have not read, and two memoirs, Running With Scissors, concerning his flabbergastingly horrible, screwed-up childhood, and Dry, concerning his brutal and nearly fatal battles with alcohol addiction, both of which we have read. What fun! you say. Sounds jolly! you say. I'm going to run right out and read those memoirs! you say. Well, while the events depicted are unpleasant, this man is BLACKLY HILARIOUS. So at various points while reading his memoirs, I was simultaneously horrified and amused to the point of laughing out loud. It's an odd sensation, but I really love his writing, and gleefully anticipated getting to see and hear him in person.

And he did not disappoint. He was dressed in jeans, a T-shirt under a plaid button-up with very long sleeves unbuttoned at the cuff and sticking out from the sleeves of his denim jacket. One end of the collar of this button-up shirt lay over the collar of the denim jacket and one lay below. This asymmetry kept drawing my eye during the reading. He was wearing a "trucker hat," brown, with a patch depicting a cow on it. He wore glasses. I thought he was very attractive. My companion Rob, a med student who had unexpectedly finished his day at Harborview early, teased me for my goggling behavior. I was a little antsy to begin with because five minutes before they got down to the nitty gritty of the reading, they almost completely shut the second of two thirty-foot black concrete rolling doors into the auditorium space. (The first one was already shut.)

He was introduced first by Chris Hagashi of the Center for the Book, and then more specifically by an employee of the Elliott Bay Book Company who said "um" so much in his mostly unoriginal introduction that I wanted to launch spitballs at him. Thank god he was brief. He related an anecdote about Augusten's first visit to Seattle three years ago, when he was much less known, when he read down at Elliott Bay. Apparently, he doesn't have the flair for readings, and on this occasion, he read for ten minutes, called for questions, and when no one raised their hand instantly, he dashed away. During this intro, Augusten was off to the side, hands clasped tightly over his newest book, looking pointedly at the floor and being Totally Shy. Who knew? For a man who is utterly and completely bare and confessional and his writing, this is ironic, but probably not atypical.

When he took the podium, Augusten said he hadn't gotten much better about readings, and they kind of mystify him because something that will make one audience in one city laugh one night will leave the audience in the next city sitting silently horrified. Then, with the preface "I hope there aren't any kids here," he allowed us to choose between a story about Key West called "Key Worst" and a story about his blind date with Raoul. Of course, we overwhelmingly voted for Raoul. Immediately upon holding the vote, he launched right into the story, and he read very well. I was very disappointed Sussespeck could not be there, because it was right up her alley. I won't spoil it, but it was a hilarious story. He is very funny--at one point he paused for emphasis and just looked at us and it just killed me. Anyway, afterward he answered questions and he said it amazes him how embarrassed he gets reading the stuff. He says he never really thinks as he writes them (the most recent book is individual stories rather than narrative memoir) that he'll have to present them to people at readings. That partially explains his shyness, I suppose.

Far from running away after reading his story, he answered questions with long, rambling, amusing answers. The first question was: "Do you ever hear from people you write about?" and he said, "Funny you should ask that, because I just got a call from Raoul this week." (laughter) "And Raoul said: 'Hey you didn't tell me you were a writer, I've read _Running with Scissors_ now and I'm in the middle of _Dry_, and now I hear you've got a new book out!'" (laughter) "So I told him, 'Well, it's this collection of stories and I don't think you'd like it.'" (He went on to discuss other encounters with people he'd written about.)

In answering one question, he got onto the subject of where he lives, on a cul-de-sac near his brother. His brother, he explains, has Aspergher's syndrome, which is like autism (he says, I cannot confirm, see also: Google), and built his house with a gigantic steel girter running the length of his garage. His brother says this is because most homes are incapable of having objects weighing more than 3,000 pounds moved into them, but with this steel girter, you can attach some sort of crane to it, and bring in very heavy objects. The logical question, which Augusten asked his brother, is what sorts of things does he plan on bringing into the house that weigh more than 3,000 pounds, and his brother responded "I don't have anything in mind, but if I do want to bring in something that weighs that much, I'll be able to." The house is also built not to residential code, but to commercial office building code, with a water-heater capable of serving 350 people. I don't know what all that has to do with Aspergher's, but I thought it was pretty funny.

Upon leaving the reading, Rob and I turned on sports radio to get the score of the Yankees-Red Sox game and heard it was tied in the 14th, so we u-turned it back to downtown and headed to the King Street to try and catch the end of the game. It ended JUST before we got there, depriving me of seeing Rob in the throes of Yankee-induced arrogance just before the agony of defeat, but it was still pretty funny to point my finger at him when we heard the outcome. "Now I need a beer!" he cried. He kept telling me it didn't matter, that the Yankees would win the series anyway, and frankly, there's not a good come back for that. Those em effers almost always do win.